Your wedding – you’ve dreamed about it for years, envisioning every aspect of the day from the location to the food to the members of the bridal party to the dress. You know exactly how everything should look. You even know the layout of the invitation (and now that you have a fiancé you can finalize it with the groom’s name), the name of the band that will play your first song and the details of the seating chart (Uncle Bob must not sit near Aunt Marge). There’s only one little (or not so little) thing that you have to take care of: your waist.

Seventy percent of brides are attempting to lose weight before their wedding, regardless of if they are obese, over-, normal or underweight. They are so determined to shrink their frames that they purchase gowns at least one or two sizes too small as a means of motivation, and adopt extreme dieting habits to achieve their goal. Many skip meals, take over-the-counter weight-loss pills or rely on supplements. Some, although not as many, take up smoking, consume laxatives, induce vomiting or cut out solids. They use their wedding, their image of the ideal bride and their drive to realize that image to spiral their bodies into ill health, all for a size that, if achieved probably won’t last the honeymoon.

Extreme methods of weight loss are rarely long-term and are never healthy, particularly if they actively involve cigarettes, vomiting or laxatives. Rather than using your goal and your motivation to worsen your wellbeing, use it to adopt healthy habits that will last you from your wedding to your 25th anniversary. Wedding sites and magazines (reputable ones) often offer advice on how to lose weight or get in shape before your big day. They structure your game plan based on how much time you have and what your ultimate goal is, which, by the way, isn’t necessarily to lose weight. If you are of a normal weight or a healthy overweight, don’t kill yourself shedding pounds. Make your goal toning and shaping. A little definition can change the way you view your body and allow you to see that the perfect bride is already staring back at you in the mirror.